Morphewz

Feb. 7 at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, CA

2008-01-29T12:09:00.000-08:00

Playin electric guitar with Brad Henderson on drums around 8:00 pm, following the honey-tongued Cecil Church from Alabama, and opening up for the bee-sting-tongued Joe Wenderoth of Balitmore, MD. I'll also be performing songs with Joe during his performance, which mostly entails his poetry and his films and the audience's inability to see him (we'll all be performing in the dark).

Vaporizer's comin.

Vaporizer track listing

2007-12-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

1. Backstage
2. Shell Game
3. Taking Things For Granted
4. Public Domain
5. The Other Stuff
6. Homeless Honeymoon
7. Starfucker
8. I Know Goodbye
9. The Hook
10. You Do It For Me

in the meantime--

2007-11-20T11:00:00.001-08:00

check this new article out in the noble peter read's noble rag Nightflying:

http://www.nightflying.com/new/morphew.html

Vaporizer

2007-11-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

hey yo

the mixing's done (thanks to geoff reacher's tireless and herculean efforts), the artwork's ready to go, everything's sequenced--now we just gotta send it out to the plant--lookin at a spring '08 release--i'm rather chuffed--

j

new cd

2007-08-22T08:21:00.001-07:00

Been recording a new one in Austin at Geoff Reacher's studio Proper Credit; Geoff's been engineering and making beats; will hopefully have it out by Christmas; songs we've got tracked so far: "The Other Stuff," "Homeless Honeymoon," "You Do It For Me," "Starfucker," "Backstage," "Taking Things For Granted," "Shell Game," "The Hook," "Public Domain," and "I Know Goodbye."

Working title: Vaporizer.

Thanks to everyone who gave us a couch or a floor or a bed or a stage on our recent tour.

2007-07-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Trojans

Our efforts are those of the unfortunate;
our efforts are like those of the Trojans.
Somewhat we succeed; somewhat
we regain confidence; and we start
to have courage and high hopes.

But something always happens and stops us.
Achilles in the trench before us
emerges and with loud cries terrifies us.

Our efforts are like those of the Trojans.
We believe that with resolution and daring
we will alter the blows of destiny,
and we stand outside to do battle.

But when the great crisis comes,
our daring and our resolution vanish;
our soul is agitated, paralyzed;
and we run around the walls
seeking to save ourselves in flight.

Nevertheless, our fall is certain. Above,
on the walls, the mourning has already begun.
The memories and the sentiments of our days weep.
Bitterly Priam and Hecuba weep for us.

C.P. Cavafy

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Holding Merle Haggard 12" vinyl reissue available now from this site

2007-05-29T14:58:00.001-07:00

it's done, and it's exactly as we'd hoped it'd be--go the Releases page on this site and get you one--

here's the press release we're using:
********************************************************************************

In the summer of 1995, Jason Morphew holed up in Arkansas with a four-track, a broken heart, and a five-string guitar and recorded a concept album for a fledgling cassette label in New York called Brassland. The album's concept: a young Arkie couple that adores Merle Haggard heads out to California to see the great man perform in his native Bakersfield. Merle picks the woman out of the audience, invites her backstage. Soon the woman hops on Merle's tour bus and leaves her boyfriend stranded in the swirling, golden dust.

Over the years, *Holding Merle Haggard* has become a cult's cult-classic; it's achieved a sort of double-underground legendary status. Morphew's gotten fan mail from Japan and France about it, been offered major label contracts because of it, been informed in no uncertain terms by many people that he'll never top it.

Now, here's the deluxe 12" vinyl version of the classic (one inch for every year since it was first released), remastered from the original recordings, with four bonus tracks, lots of liner notes, and a beautiful, original Baxter Knowlton painting on the cover to boot. Call it pre-alt-country, or pre-folk-nouveau, or a-confessional, or weirdly homoerotic, or end-y rock, or just real good--as usual, Morphew wasn't aiming to do anything but write and record the songs the way they came to him, and his songs don't seem to come to him attached to any genre.

Jason Morphew's six full-lengths have been highly acclaimed in England and America. His music has appeared on movie soundtracks and on best-of compilations alongside Lucinda Williams, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Cowboy Junkies, and Bob Dylan, among others. His recordings have featured members of The Magnetic Fields and The Mars Volta, and his singles have been spun by such influential DJs as John Peel, Steve Lamacq, and Rodney Bingemheimer. He divides his time between a tiny city-house in Los Angeles and a tiny farm-house in Winters, California, in wine country, where Morphew often gets lost on curving country roads.

******************************************************************************

Baxter on the radio link

2007-02-10T22:35:00.000-08:00

Hear Baxter Knowlton getting props for his paintings on Mississippi Public Radio:

http://www.mpbonline.org/news/local-news/0702-archives/documents/070201-ellen-Baxter.mp3

wed. jan. 17 at cal state bakersfield w/joe wenderoth

2007-01-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

i don't know where on campus this will take place, but it'll likely be in an auditorium of some kind--this is a joe wenderoth "reading"--they're not the typical, suicide-provokingly dull "readings," though--they honor the spirit of joe's material, let's put it that way--i'm gonna play the guitar and sing with him in different points of his show--old songs, hank, buck owens, merle, jimmie rodgers--i've only been to bakersfield once, to have a beer at the crystal palace, though i've written several songs with "bakersfield" in the title, like on my album Holding Merle Haggard--ought to be real fun

ps:

http://www.csubak.edu/Runner/1-24-07%20pgs/runner%20pg2%20-%201-24-07.pdf